I Burn with a Thing I Still Have No Name For

1) If you were the friend or family in question, wouldn’t you want to be there for your loved one? Don’t deny your loved ones the opportunity to demonstrate their love for you. You probably know what it’s like when someone you love tells you they’re doing fine and you can’t help but feel like they’re just not trusting you to lend a hand or offer a shoulder to cry on. You know your loved ones don’t deserve that feeling.

2) The longer you try to hold everything together on your own, the more likely you’ll end up having such a complete breakdown that you are much *more* of a burden on your loved ones than if you had reached out for general support earlier on.

We’re humans, social animals like any primate, and we depend on connection. If you have people in your life whom you love and care about enough to want to protect from the stress of caring for you, you are so lucky! That’s wonderful! Those are also the exact people you should be turning to.

Think about this: you’ll have seen that cats and dogs will often display their bellies to another cat or dog as a sign of respect and submission when building relationships. It says “here is the weakest part of me and I trust you to treat me gently.”

Ruth Negga doing Jury duty at Cannes 2026

Les Femmes Palestiniennes (1974, Jocelyne Saab)

youtube (eng subs). vimeo (spanish subs) / runtime: 10mins